Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
Ebook110 pages2 hours

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

The 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant is widely considered as one the most important figures in modern philosophy. His fundamental arguments with regard to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics, have been highly influential and form the basis for much of contemporary thought upon the subjects with which he was concerned. Kant believed that there were fundamental concepts that structured human experience, and that reason principally should guide one’s examination of these concepts. “Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals” is his classic exposition of moral philosophy. In this work Kant examines the core concepts of moral theory in an effort to lay bare the fundamental principles of morality. This highly influential work of philosophy is groundbreaking in its argument that righteousness is a function of the character of the principles upon which people act. Kant’s ideas on morality are intriguing and exemplary of his deft at philosophical thought. “Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals” is a must read for all seeking a better understanding of the world and humanity’s place in it, through philosophical inquiry.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 1, 2017
ISBN9781420954470
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
Author

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and is known as one of the foremost thinkers of Enlightenment. He is widely recognized for his contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.

Read more from Immanuel Kant

Related to Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)

Related ebooks

Philosophy For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)

Rating: 3.611524185873606 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

269 ratings4 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Inasmuch as we can praise Kant's brilliance and analytical rigour, the Metaphysics of Morals falls patently flat if only because he is overextending the gains he has made in the first Critique to apply to the domain of ethics. Any movement from "is" to "ought" (i.e., the shift from ontology to ethics) is going to be fraught with perils. I would say that, from the standpoint of Kant's entire oeuvre, this is his lowest point. That being said, no serious reader in philosophy can bypass this text as it is essential reading in the development of ethics in the transition from the Enlightenment to subsequent Romanticism.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kant is very hard to read, at least for me, however when reading him you discover a first rate mind, that looks very deeply into the human condition. In this book Kant looks for ground to build a system of moral and ethics on. While it has flaws, for its time his conclusions are breath taking.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't know--this just doesn't come together for me. Kant tries to develop a consistent system of morals in light of reason and will. He starts off though (p143) with "We assume, as a fundamental principle, that no organ for any purpose will be found in the physical constitution of an organized being, except one which is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose." He is speaking about reason and will as much as any other organ. Another odd tautology: "Innocence is indeed a glorious thing, only it is a pity that it cannot maintain itself well and is easily seduced." He defines God (ok, so here is why the die-hard intellectuals like him) as "the idea of moral perfection." He does have a nugget of truth in his footnotes about why moral teachings fail -- because the teacher does usually not have a consistent grounding of their own and thus fails to present a coherent picture by example. He describes happiness as the one common end and a duty of practical reason. Ends are valued over means and the "one categorical imperative" is "Act only on a maxim by which you can will that it, at the same time, should become a general law." His conclusion of a few paragraphs does summarize everything and is perhaps the first clearly conveyed information. However, much of his work is an attack on straightforward reason.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    To read Kant is to become acquainted with what it means to take thought seriously. Today it is not uncommon to set up a straw Kant in Phil 101 classes, using either this text or the "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics," to depict Kant as an incorrigible rationalist reductionist. Still, if you want to read Kant without slogging through the three Critiques, read "Prolegomena," the "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals," and the "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime;" you’ll discover a thinker with, yes, tremendous intellect, but more importantly, the integrity of genius; and moreover, one who could also be considered (especially in the "Remarks") a fine stylist. Modern thought remains emphatically post-Kantian, even when it rejects his premises or his conclusions; it is still Kant's project to which it reacts. More than any text I know except Wittgenstein's Tractatus, these works by Kant exhibit the absolute rigor and confidence of hard thinking. Reading them slowly, one almost recaptures the sense that, if the difficulties are simply thought through to the end, even the most immovable problems will yield to the irresistible force of the mind. What Kant and Wittgenstein share is a surprising way of drawing limits to thinking in a way that is meant, ultimately, to empower. Kant sought to make clear the power and the limits of human thinking in such a way as to encourage, rather than undermine, confidence in it. The mind may have limits, but for Kant, as for Socrates, everything is gained in *knowing* those limits. His ethics--the real pinnacle of his thought--demonstrate that definite, positive conclusions for action and conduct could follow from such a delimiting. Seen in this way, his thought is a breathtaking synthesis of audacity and humility, and remains as pertinent as it ever was; not because it's incontestable, but because it engages questions most worth contesting, and does so with courage, consistency, and a real capacity for awe.

Book preview

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott) - Immanuel Kant

cover.jpg

GROUNDWORK OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS

By IMMANUEL KANT

Translated by

THOMAS KINGSMILL ABBOTT

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

By Immanuel Kant

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5446-3

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5447-0

This edition copyright © 2017. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of portrait of Immanuel Kant by an unknown artist, c. 18th century.

Please visit www.digireads.com

CONTENTS

PREFACE

FIRST SECTION

SECOND SECTION

THIRD SECTION

Preface

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics, ethics, and logic. This division is perfectly suitable to the nature of the thing; and the only improvement that can be made in it is to add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy ourselves of its completeness, and also be able to determine correctly the necessary subdivisions.

All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects. Formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject, is again twofold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of freedom. The science of the former is physics, that of the latter, ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy respectively.

Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the universal and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken from experience; otherwise it would not be logic, i.e., a canon for the understanding or the reason, valid for all thought, and capable of demonstration. Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen. Ethics, however, must also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not.

We may call all philosophy empirical, so far as it is based on grounds of experience: on the other band, that which delivers its doctrines from a priori principles alone we may call pure philosophy. When the latter is merely formal it is logic; if it is restricted to definite objects of the understanding it is metaphysic.

In this way there arises the idea of a twofold metaphysic—a metaphysic of nature and a metaphysic of morals. Physics will thus have an empirical and also a rational part. It is the same with Ethics; but here the empirical part might have the special name of practical anthropology, the name morality being appropriated to the rational part.

All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of labour, namely, when, instead of one man doing everything, each confines himself to a certain kind of work distinct from others in the treatment it requires, so as to be able to perform it with greater facility and in the greatest perfection. Where the different kinds of work are not distinguished and divided, where everyone is a jack-of-all-trades, there manufactures remain still in the greatest barbarism. It might deserve to be considered whether pure philosophy in all its parts does not require a man specially devoted to it, and whether it would not be better for the whole business of science if those who, to please the tastes of the public, are wont to blend the rational and empirical elements together, mixed in all sorts of proportions unknown to themselves, and who call themselves independent thinkers, giving the name of minute philosophers to those who apply themselves to the rational part only—if these, I say, were warned not to carry on two employments together which differ widely in the treatment they demand, for each of which perhaps a special talent is required, and the combination of which in one person only produces bunglers. But I only ask here whether the nature of science does not require that we should always carefully separate the empirical from the rational part, and prefix to Physics proper (or empirical physics) a metaphysic of nature, and to practical anthropology a metaphysic of morals, which must be carefully cleared of everything empirical, so that we may know how much can be accomplished by pure reason in both cases, and from what sources it draws this its a priori teaching, and that whether the latter inquiry is conducted by all moralists (whose name is legion), or only by some who feel a calling thereto.

As my concern here is with moral philosophy, I limit the question suggested to this: Whether it is not of the utmost necessity to construct a pure thing which is only empirical and which belongs to anthropology? for that such a philosophy must be possible is evident from the common idea of duty and of the moral laws. Everyone must admit that if a law is to have moral force, i.e., to be the basis of an obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example, the precept, Thou shalt not lie, is not valid for men alone, as if other rational beings had no need to observe it; and so with all the other moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the basis of obligation must not be sought in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, but a priori simply in the conception of pure reason; and although any other precept which is founded on principles of mere experience may be in certain respects universal, yet in as far as it rests even in the least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to a motive, such a precept, while it may be a practical rule, can never be called a moral law.

Thus not only are moral laws with their principles essentially distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives laws a priori to him as a rational being. No doubt these laws require a judgement sharpened by experience, in order on the one hand to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other to procure for them access to the will of the man and effectual influence on conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations that, though capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily able to make it effective in concreto in his life.

A metaphysic of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely for speculative reasons, in order to investigate the sources of the practical principles which are to be found a priori in our reason, but also because morals themselves are liable to all sorts of corruption, as long as we are without that clue and supreme canon by which to estimate them correctly. For in order that an action should be morally good, it is not enough that it conform to the moral law, but it must also be done for the sake of the law, otherwise that conformity is only very contingent and uncertain; since a principle which is not moral, although it may now and then produce actions conformable to the law, will also often produce actions which contradict it. Now it is only a pure philosophy that we can look for the moral law in its purity and genuineness (and, in a practical matter, this is of the utmost consequence): we must, therefore, begin with pure philosophy (metaphysic), and without it there cannot be any moral philosophy at all. That which mingles these pure principles with the empirical does not deserve the name of philosophy (for what distinguishes philosophy from common rational knowledge is that it treats in separate sciences what the latter only comprehends confusedly); much less does it deserve that of moral philosophy, since by this confusion it even spoils the purity of morals themselves, and counteracts its own end.

Let it not be thought, however, that what is here demanded is already extant in the propaedeutic prefixed by the celebrated Wolf to his moral philosophy, namely, his so-called general practical philosophy, and that, therefore, we have not to strike into an entirely new field. just because it was to be a general practical philosophy, it has not taken into consideration a will of any particular kind—say one which should be determined solely from a priori principles without any empirical motives,

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1